Dear Provost, Canons, Fathers, brothers and sisters
This evening we gather with our Cathedral Canons for our bi-annual chapter and, once again, it is with the special joy of raising two of our senior priests  of the diocese to the order of Canon so as to make complete once again our Cathedral  Chapter.
 
We gather, fittingly, on the Feast of Saint Patrick.  It is a fitting feast, not only because it allows us – so I am told - to relax our Lenten abstinence and enjoy the festivities, but really because both Fr Oliver and Fr Tom, our new canons, are priests given to our Church by Ireland and St. Patrick’s College Thurles; even from its premier county of Tipperary.    
 
The Scriptures for Mass always provide a guiding light for us and it is no less the case  this evening. 
 
In the first reading Peter alerts us to the truth that, ‘Everything is coming to an end’.  Frs. Oliver and Tom I would not want you to think that becoming a canon means you are old and no more than a step away from pushing up the daisies.  I would want you, instead, to think of this step in your priestly lives as representing more a culmination of all that has been rather than the end of anything new to come.  St.  Peter goes reminds you, at this stage of your priesthood, that our people hope to find in you shepherds now calm and sober in mind.   They hope to find you fathers who love them sincerely and, as often as they do, they will be ready to excuse any small human weaknesses that remain.  They hope to find your arms wide open to welcome them into your parishes cheerfully.   By now you know yourselves well  enough to appreciate the special  gifts you have been given for the building up  of the Church and, more importantly, how to use them in service  of the  Church, as good stewards responsible not just of natural talents, but of supernatural graces given you by God Himself.  You are not to use them for your own  advancement. 
 
In the Gospel Jesus reminds you how it is simply by doing well the simple, day today, mundane things of your priestly lives, and out of trusting obedience to Jesus, that you will see wonderful things happen.  Saint Peter’s heart was open to allowing Jesus into his life and work, and he was obedient to the simple command of Jesus to put out his nets for a catch.  He did not insist upon his own professional estimation of the advice Jesus gave or he would have caught nothing.  But because he listened attentively to the voice of the Lord  and  trustfully carried out God’s will he found  it has surprising effects in his ministry, and an even more profound effect in his ongoing conversion  to God.  He discovered how Jesus does not care too much that we are sinners.  He can cope with that.  What He does need, and insists upon, is that we are neither too proud or fearful to trust Him, to leave our personal security behind, and to submit to His plans for our lives.
 
In this priestly challenge you have a fine example in St. Patrick, the patron of the college where your priestly vocation was forged.  Born just over the Erskine bridge, he was captured by pirates when no more than a boy and taken to Ireland as a slave and to herd and tend sheep. But in that strange land of pagans and Druids Patrick turned to God and found Him near.  In The Confession he wrote about how:  " The love and fear of God grew in me more and more, as did the faith, and my soul was raised so high that  in a single day I said as many as a hundred prayers, and in the night nearly the same. I prayed in the woods and on the mountain, even before dawn. I felt no hurt from the snow or ice or rain."
 
Though he escaped when he was twenty and returned home to his family he could not get Ireland out of his mind and, in a vision, heard the voice of the Irish crying out to him to come and walk among them again.  The vision prompted his priestly vocation and led him to return to Ireland, now as a bishop, to bring the Gospel to the Irish and, in time, convert the whole of that fair land.  We know of his fabled miracles and great victories but the more realistic truth was surely of a forty year ministry lived, we know, in poverty, constantly on the missionary road, enduring much suffering and, in the few spare hours allowed him writing, the tale of his passionate love for His Triune God and beloved Christ.
 
What we remember most of all about Patrick was a humble, pious, gentle man, whose love and total devotion to and trust in God is a radiant example to each of us even to this day. So complete was his trust in God, and his conviction of the importance of his mission to tell of Jesus, that he feared nothing -not even death.  Patrick was a priest who walked with Christ every day of his life, expressed himself in his lovely hymn,  " Christ be within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ inquired, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger."
Frs. Oliver and Tom you stand before us today, alumni of St. Patrick's College, Thurles and you are elevated this evening as sons of St. Patrick himself.  Thurles was founded for the purpose of founding a college to provide a liberal education of catholic youth destined for the priesthood and, by the turn of the third millennium, had ordained over 1,500 men for the priesthood, a large number of whom left Ireland to distinguish themselves as priests and bishops in other countries like you.  Following your friend Bishop Brian  McGee who graduated from  Thurles with you, you represent the latest to be distinguished in  that fine  line and we are proud and honoured to install you in our Paisley Chapter of Canons.
 
May the blessed Mother Mary intercede for you, Her Son’s lowly servants in the mission, raised now closer to the heart and mission of our Lord, Jesus Christ.